IP: at least all CIS is taking away is the Germans freedom

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CNN) -- CompuServe said Thursday that it is restoring most
of its subscribers' access to the more than 200 newsgroups it had cut off on
December 28. It hopes to have access restored to all but its German
customers by the end of the month.






A newsgroup is a site on the Internet that focuses on a specific topic --
Net surfers might find newsgroups on virtually any topic, ranging from Star
Trek to gardening, astrophysics to stamp collecting. Users involved in
newsgroup discussions can post messages for all to see, with sound files and
graphics as well as text.






The company said that German government officials had given them a list of
newsgroups with content that is illegal under German criminal law. Most of
the groups are believed to be of a sexually explicit nature. CompuServe said
it believed that the German government would bring criminal charges against
the company if it did not restrict its users' access to those groups.


<Picture: computer screen>


On Wednesday, however, a German official said that the country had never
told CompuServe to shut off access to any newsgroups. Munich's senior public
prosecutor, Manfred Wick, said that as part of his office's investigation
into child pornography, it had asked CompuServe only to examine a list of
such newsgroups last month.






"The decision on whether and to what extent the groups on the list would be
blocked was left to CompuServe," he said in a statement.






Nonetheless, CompuServe said it plans to continue to block access to the
groups for its German subscribers.






CompuServe initially had no way to restrict access to various Internet sites
based on a user's location. If it wanted to close access to a site, it had
to do so for every subscriber worldwide. The on-line service provider said
it was "investigating ways in which we can restrict user access to selected
newsgroups by geographical location."


<Picture: child at computer>


It apparently found a quick solution; USA Today reported Thursday that
beginning early next week, CompuServe plans to block access to the groups
only in Germany.






CompuServe spokesman Jeff Shafer said the ability to block access by country
will be an important tool. "We're in more than 140 countries," he said. "It
would be silly to think we would not come up against this elsewhere."






CompuServe has more than 4 million subscribers worldwide, 500,000 of them in
Western Europe.